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Sunday, 13 August 2017

India Deploys Troops Along China Border

India
Deploys More Troops Along China Border, Raises "Caution"
Level

With
the world obsessing over every increasingly childish outburst in the
daily back and forth between Trump and Kim Jong-Un, another conflict
which has so far gone largely unnoticed by the global media continues
to grow on the border between India and China.

As
reported yesterday, in the most recent escalation between the two
nuclear powers, the Indian Army ordered the evacuation of a village
close to the Doklam India-Bhutan-China tri-junction amid to a
standoff between Indian and Chinese soldiers. This takes place just
days after China turned the war threat amplifier up to '11' by
threatening India (in an article published a Chinese state-controlled
newspaper) that it could conduct a "small-scale military
operation" to expel Indian troops from a contested region in the
Himalayas.

For
those who need a reminder, the latest geopolitical standoff between
India and China started in June, after Chinese troops started
building a road on a remote plateau which is disputed by China and
Bhutan. Indian troops countered by moving to the flashpoint zone to
halt the work, with China accusing them of violating its territorial
sovereignty and calling for their immediate withdrawal.

After
adding a large number of troops to the region, China then sharply
escalated when a Chinese Ministry of Defense warned explicitly that
Indian troops must leave the contested area if they do not want war.

Then,
earlier this week, tensions escalated further when as the Independent
reported, the Chinese
state-owned Global Times quoted a research fellow at the Institute of
International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
who said China
is preparing to initiate a "limited war" to push Indian
soldiers out of the area.

To
this, the Indian response was the abovementioned forced evacuation of
a few hundred villagers living in Nathang, who were asked to vacate
their houses immediately, according to News18.
Nathang is 35 km from the site of the two-month old standoff.

Which
brings us to today, and the latest
report by PTI India,
according to which in a strategically key move, India
has poured in more troops along the entire stretch of its border with
China in Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh in the face of heightened
rhetoric by Beijing over the Dokalam standoff, according
to senior government officials on Friday.

Furthermore, the
"caution level" among the troops has also been raised, the
officials told PTI.

The
Indian officials said that the decision to increase the deployment
along the nearly 1,400-km Sino-India border from Sikkim to Arunachal
Pradesh was taken after carrying out a detailed analysis of the
situation and considering China's aggressive posturing against India
on Dokalam.

"The
troop level along the border with China in the Sikkim and Arunachal
sectors has been increased," said the officials on condition of
anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information. The
Army's Sukna-based 33 Corps as well as 3 and 4 corps based in
Arunachal and Assam are tasked to protect the sensitive Sino-India
border in the eastern theatre.

However,
the officials declined to give any figure or percentage of increased
deployment, saying they cannot disclose "operational details."

According
to defence experts, roughly
45,000 troops including personnel having completed the weather
acclimatisation process are normally kept ready along the border at
any given time, but not all are necessarily deployed. The
soldiers, deployed over 9,000 feet, have to go through a 14-day-long
acclimatisation process.

The
officials, however, said there is no enhancement of troops at the
India-China-Bhutan tri-junction in Dokalam where around 350 army
personnel are holding on to their position for nearly eight weeks
after stopping Chinese troops from constructing a road on June 16.

Bhutan
and China have competing claims over Dokalam, and are negotiating a
resolution. Meanwhile, China has been ramping up bellicose rhetoric
against India over the last few week - in many aspect echoing either
side in the US-North Korea conflict - demanding immediate withdrawal
of Indian troops from Dokalam. Both the Chinese and Indian state
medias have carried a barrage of critical articles on the Dokalam
stand-off slamming India.

India's
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj recently said both sides
should first pull back their troops for any talks to take place, and
favoured a peaceful resolution of the border standoff. India also
conveyed to the Chinese government that the road construction would
represent a significant change of status quo with serious security
implications for it.

So
far, not only has neither side pulled back troops, but as today's
latest news of increasing deployment suggests, a full blown conflict,
one whose consequences could be far more devastating than a US
military intervention in North Korea, looks increasingly likely with
every passing day.